


strange things did happen here

by raeldaza



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, I am guessing basically this is my idea for a season two, Multi, Not Season/Series 02 Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-22
Updated: 2017-08-22
Packaged: 2018-12-13 13:46:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11761179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raeldaza/pseuds/raeldaza
Summary: When Jonathan comes back to Hawkins to work a mysterious case, old feelings - and people - arise.





	strange things did happen here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GhostGrantaire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostGrantaire/gifts).



> pokes head into fandom

 

1988

The door slammed shut behind Nancy. 

“You’d think with violent crime rates so low we make the national list, the state might actually give us some damn money so we’re not driving around in decade old tan and white death metal machines.”

She took a bite of her donut as she heads to her desk, waving a hand in passing at the two men already in and at their desks. 

“Good morning, Chief,” Flo greeted. She was wearing her Halloween cardigan, despite the fact the date passed two weeks ago with a flurry of pumpkins and plastic skeletons scattered around the precinct walls. 

Nancy sat down in her chair, which creaked like an old water pipe. 

“Car trouble, I presume?” Flo was, apparently, still behind her, now standing behind her chair Nancy turned her head slightly, nodding to the oversized wire glasses.

“Damn alternator making noise again.” She took a bite of the donut again. Glazed was a bad idea - stuck to the lips, and she didn’t have any napkins at her desk, she didn’t think. She opened up her top drawer to make sure.

“Chief, there’s a couple pressing matters at hand, actually.”

“Yeah?” Nancy responded, distracted. She had far too much shit in her desk drawers - Steve needed to stop buying her trinkets whenever he went on a work trip, she had no place for them all; she couldn’t well keep on her desk and still demand respect, despite how they all made her smile softly whenever she saw the pile.

“Did you know Mrs. Larson?”

“Phil Larson’s wife?” Nancy slammed her drawer shut. No napkins and she still had half a donut. “Way too interested in my gardens?”

“That’s her. She works at the supermarket?”

“What about her?”

“Well, Chief, she’s missing.”

“Missing?”

“Reports say that she’s was working the closing shift at the store, no one in there, when all the lights went out, and when they went back on, no more Mrs. Larson.”

“She didn’t just leave?”

“Doors were locked - she was closing everything. Security cameras show she was there - then she wasn’t.”

“Get the tapes for me.”

“Done.”

“Eyewitnesses?”

“None.”

“Anything left at the scene of the crime?”

“That’s your job, boss.”

Nancy stood. She breathed a sigh, and moved to gather her hair for a ponytail. “Yeah, I suppose it is.”

“One last thing before you go,” Flo said. Nancy turned, hands still in her hair, and raised her eyebrows. “Joyce Byers called. Said to be on the lookout for Will again.”

Nancy sighed, long and heavy, and let her arms drop. Her ponytail swooshed. “When am I not?”

* * *

Robert Donavan testimony was written across the top of her notebook in graphite pencil, big and underlined.

“No one else was here?” Nancy asked.

“No one. She was the closing register - it is her job to close up the shop, make sure everyone is out before she locks the doors.” The store owner, dressed in a white button down a size too small and a blue vest a size too big, was close to tears. 

It was a cold November day, far too cold for either of them to have forgotten a coat. The wind was steadily picking up, rustling the leaves around her feet, and the color seems desaturated from the briskness of the air. 

“Is there any other doors for her to left out of?”

“No. There’s just the door from the loading garage and the stockroom - she doesn’t have a key to either, and the camera doesn’t show her leaving.”

“Right.” Nancy scribbled onto the notebook  _ no obvious way of exit.  _

“Does her husband have any idea?” Robert asked with a sniffle.

“That’s where I’ll be going next, sir.” Nancy gave him her best placating smile, and she saw his shoulders slump slightly. “Is there any reason the lights would have shorted out?”

“Not that I know of. They’re all on now,” he pointed inside, where, indeed, all the lights were on and bright. “and I haven’t done anything to them since. Haven’t had any problems, either.”

“Okay.” Nancy closed her notebook and stuffed it into her back pocket. “Well, can I see the register she was at before the lights went out?”

Robert nodded and led her inside. The register, #1, is empty, and Nancy was glad to see that one of her employees - probably Susan - had already secured it with police tape.

It looked unassuming and regular at a distance, but something appeared to be on it at a closer glance.

Nancy stepped closer, brows furrowing, and leaned in to inspect the register’s buttons.

It was a white substance, like snow or ash, little and powder and difficult to see - almost like it was blinking in and out of the realm of visibility. She felt remarkably uneasy, though she had no real reason.

And, when the reason clicked, she felt her heart skip two beats, and her vision blur. 

She stumbled back a step and reached for her walkie-talkie. “Officer Cortez,” she said, voice shaking slightly. “There’s a substance at the scene. I want you to call in a forensic photographer, please, and a forensic analyst. I want this documented and I want the substance analyzed, pronto, do you read?”

* * *

“Byers!”

Jonathan’s hands stilled from fidgeting with his pen, and he felt his shoulders hunch to ears without his permission.

“My office, now.”

Letting out a calming breath, Jonathan stood and turned and walked the extra ten feet to his boss’s office. He shut the door behind him and turned, hands in his pockets. His boss’s feet were already on the desk.

“Byers, take a seat.”

Obediently, Jonathan sat, hands immediately twisting in his lap.

Scaramouche was spinning a pen in his fingers and, stupidly, it annoyed Jonathan that it was an action that he himself had been doing a moment prior. 

“You know why I had to turn you down for your leave, right?” Scaramouche asked.

Jonathan nodded, shifting slightly in his seat. “I haven’t allocated enough time here to take time off.”

“Right you are, son.” Scaramouche sat up and dropped the pen, just to pick up and hit him on the arm with a newspaper, grin wide and obnoxious. Jonathan smiled back, small and pained. “And it’s not like it was an emergency or anything, just, what was it, your brother is diabetic?”

“Eremitic.”

“Right.” Scaramouche waved a hand in the air. “That’s what I meant. Not a real emergency, you know. And if I made an’ exception for you, I’d have to do it for all my guys, you get me, Byers?”

“Of course, sir.” 

Jonathan was beginning to tune him out, the faint tune of “Livin’ on a Prayer” from the radio invading his ears, and Scaramouche began to blur into the background.

Jonathan’s hand tapped against the chair. He forgot his camera on his desk. 

“Great, all this to preface that I’m the best boss you’d ever damn hope for, ‘cause I’m sending you down to Hawkins after all.”

Jonathan blinked. 

His hand stilled.

“What was that?”

“Okay, so, get this, right? I get a call during my seven o’clock jamboree and chocolate milk session, and it’s this woman, Karen, used to know her in college, right, big donk donks, anyway, this dame calls me up, says there’s this weird case in small town Indiana, grocery store worker found missing at her post. I say, ‘why do I care,’ but, apparently, this town has some history of FBI intervention, something weird went down five years ago, and it has to do with missing persons, and apparently their new chief is a new up-and-comer who is paranoid as shit and demanding a forensic team on a missing persons case, so I say, ‘okay get on with it,’ you know, this is my chocolate milk time — ”

Jonathan’s head was beginning to ache, right above his left eye, but he resisted the urge to rub it.

“Anyway, FBI takes things seriously in this town, apparently, so they want a forensic photographer to send to some specialist up in Georgetown, but they don’t have one immediately available, something about the avian flu, whatever, and since I’m best buddies with Max Jurado, he was my partner for five years before he got put up in Georgetown, he suggested that our Brooklyn office might have someone to spare, and, hey, guess what, they want someone to go to Hawkins, and guess what I have, a forensic photographer who has a request to go to Hawkins right on my desk. Granted, a denied request, and a junior photographer who is well underneath this paygrade of an assignment — ”

“But I’m going?” Jonathan interrupted. 

Scaramouche narrowed his eyes, evidently put off about being interrupted.

“You better kiss my ass for the rest of eternity, kid, but yes, you’re going. You can have your family reunion.”

Jonathan stood. “Thank you, sir. I’m heading out now?”

“Yeah, you better. Apparently the Chief has called four times in the past hour.”

“Noted.”

* * *

“Chief!” Nancy’s hands stilled on the typewriter. “I got news about that forensic photographer you wanted.”

“Finally,” Nancy breathed. She turned to Karen. She was a rather new hire from the past three months, and slightly overqualified given her university degree in communications - but if she wanted to work in a small town office with more cases about garden gnomes than murders, who was Nancy to judge?

“I called the FBI like you asked and gave the details of the case - they contacted someone from the NYPD, I suppose. It’s of their newer men who is usually stationed in New York. He’ll be here within the day.”

“NYPD?” She frowned. Her hand flipped open her cigarette case, and the other searched blindly in her coat pocket for a match. “Why would they go there for a Hawkins case?”

“Who knows? But gift horses in their mouth, and all that.”

“What’s the name? I’ll have to send someone to the airport to pick them up.”

“Uhh,” Karen glanced down at a small scrap of notebook paper in her hand. “Jonathan Byers.”

Nancy went still.

“You know him?” Karen gathered.

Nancy unfroze. She struck the match and lit up a cigarette, letting the smoke curl up to the slowly turning ceiling fan. She inhales once, a long, full draw. 

She exhaled, the smoke rising, and tapped the cigarette out on the table. “I used to.”

* * *

“Jonathan Byers!”

Jonathan found himself wrapped up in a large hug, his face smashed on Flo’s shoulder; she smelt of cinnamon and cigarette smoke.

“Hi,” he said awkwardly, patting her on the back with one hand. She had given him cookies in the past a lot, back when he spent days in the precinct going over the case of Will Byers, and back the two times he landed himself in the office due to his own miscreant behavior. 

“Nice to see you lad.” With one last squeeze, she let go. “I heard from your Mamma that you went to NYU and made a big ol’ name for yourself.”

“I went to NYU,” Jonathan confirmed, smile tight. 

“She’s so proud, your Momma, you know that?”

Jonathan smiled to himself slightly, ducking his head. “I know that.”

“Good.” Flo hit him on the back once, a good pound the had the breath leaving his lungs. “Just heard from your Momma today, and she didn’t mention you were coming by.”

“She didn’t know,” Jonathan said. He really should have called her on a payphone, but he was looking forward to surprising her - Lord knew she didn’t have enough positive surprises in her life. “Why’d she call?”

Flo’s grin turned sympathetic. “Your brother gone reclusive again.”

Jonathan sighed, small and tired. “How long this time?”

“Three days gone.”

“Note?”

“Not this time. Has he..” she trailed off. Jonathan raised his eyebrows, and she continued, hesitant. “Has he been back to the therapist?”

“Yeah, it’s just — ” There was nothing Jonathan could reveal that would make sense. “What he has, they don’t know how to treat,” he finally said, honestly. 

“I’m sorry boy,” Flo said. After an awkward moment that has Jonathan shuffling his feet, Flo’s grin brightened. “Well, come sit down. Chief Harrington just headed home for a few - she’ll be back in about twenty minutes.”

Jonathan could physically feel his stomach drop. “Chief Harrington?” He paused, knowing his eyes were wide. “She?”

* * *

Nancy leaned up against the cop car, arms crossed, smiling slightly to herself as she admired Steve water the flowers outlining their front door.

Even from a distance he was handsome.

“Sweetheart,” she called out, just to watch him drop the hose in surprise. He turned, surprised, and his grin was blinding as he recognized who it was.

“Darling!” Steve rushed over their small front yard, slightly tripping over the uneven grass. He made it to the car and put an arm on its hood and leaned in, obviously trying to look dashing. Nancy smiled indulgently. “You’re home awfully early.”

“I forgot a jacket - I’ve just stopped by to get one.” She poked at his chest. “You do realize that flowers die in the winter, right? There’s no need to water them.”

He shook his head at her, and said “Nancy, my dear,” far too serious than the situation dictated, and she couldn’t help but huff out a laugh of exasperation. “You just do not understand how to care for flowers.”

“Oh don’t I?”

He was radiating warmth, and she couldn’t help but lean in.

“No.” He shook his head seriously, and leaned down to grab her hands in his. She could feel his wedding ring press against her fingers, and her heart still skipped a beat, even though it had been seven months. “But me - I’m an expert at how to keep flowers alive, or how to kill them.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Well,” his smile turned sharp. “I was able to deflower you, wasn’t I?”

She smacked him in the chest for that one, and he laughed, loud and bright, and the stress of the day evaporated slightly.

“That was inappropriate, Steven Jacob Harrington.”

“You loved it, Nancy Wheeler Harrington.” He smiled again, eyes crinkling. “My blossom.”

“Shut up,” she said, laughing slightly despite herself. “You left the hose on.”

He turned wildly. The hose was flooding the flower bush, water visibly streaming out of the soil and into the nearby grass.

“My hydrangeas!” Steve shrieked, and sprinted back to the hose, quickly turning the tap.

Nancy rolled her eyes and pushed off the car, heading into the house.

Three minutes later and she was out again, blue coat in hand.

“Enjoy work, honey,” Steve said, leaning in to give her a kiss. She accepted it, but felt some of the tension seep back into her at the mention of work.

“Enjoy the rest of your week off,” she replied.

She gave him a pat on the arm and headed back to the car, shrugging on the jacket. A third of the way there, the disquiet gnawing at her stomach became slightly too strong to bear, and she turned around.

“Steve?” He turned. “Jonathan Byers is back in town as my forensic photographer for a case.”

She saw his eyes widen, even from twenty feet away.

“Oh.” From one word, she could see him turn gentle and nervous and posturing, his default response to Jonathan Byers since that day in 1983. “Are you going to talk to him about - well, before?”

“Might not be the right time,” she said honestly. Especially if her gut was right about this case - which she desperately hoped it was not, fiercely and strongly enough that she forced her suspicions into an unspeakable, unacknowledged part of her brain - or gut. “We are working, after all.”

“Could I try again, do you think?”

“You didn’t try enough back then?”

A pause.

“Good luck,” Steve said, and Nancy flipped her keys in her hand, suddenly feeling like a teenager again - awkward and unsure, and completely unable to express what she felt. 

* * *

Jonathan expected to see Nancy, but when she walked through the door, dressed in full police chief regalia and dwarfed by a massive blue overcoat, he still found himself stumbling awkwardly to his feet, accidentally hitting the chair into the table with a much too loud thump. He winced and bit his lip, stumbling to a still position as she headed over to him.

Her ponytail swished as she walked, and he wondered, not for the first time, if she moved her hips more than necessary because she liked how it swung back and forth. 

“Jonathan,” she greeted. Her smile was small and careful, her face slightly red, and no matter how Jonathan had built her up in her head to be something grander than life - whenever he was with her, truly with her, he was reminded that she was awkward as well, and always had been. 

Just a person.

And a person he once was stuck in a weird friend-limbo, acquaintances yet far more, friends yet far less.

“Nancy,” he greeted belatedly. 

“I see you’ve gone and become mighty.” She smiled, larger and softer, and Jonathan could feel himself blush.

“I don’t know about that,” he muttered. His shoes are muddy - trust Hawkins to still get rainstorms in November, just in time to fuck with his appearance enough he’s embarrassed about it. 

“Come on, NYPD?” She elbowed him slightly. “That’s something to be proud of.”

He let himself look up, and there she was, smiling at him, earnest and kind - it was her permanent setting it seems, like how Jonathan’s was always stuck on ‘discomforting and bordering creepy.’

Jonathan shrugged.

“New camera, I see.” She sat down on her desk and pointed to the camera lying on his chest. His hand unconsciously goes to cover it. 

“It was job distributed. I still have the other one. It’s at home, for more, you know, personal things.”

She nodded.

He can see her hand pick up a pencil and start to beat it softly up against the desk, eraser making almost no noise.

Good fucking God, it was so uncomfortable.

“So,” Jonathan said, awkwardly trying to change the subject. He shifted his weight to the other leg. “Chief, huh? That seems - quick.”

“The academy was a year, and I started directly out of high school. Hopper took me under his wing immediately, trained me himself. That combined with some convenient transferring and retiring - I was the best option, if they stayed internal when promoting.”

“You would have been the best option anyway, I’m sure.”

At her eyebrow raise and small, pleased smile, he hastened to explain, “It’s just, you were so good at everything in high school — ”

“Everything?” she teased. 

“Well.” There was no way out of this one without embarrassing himself or hurting her, so he made a strategic exit. “Whatever happened to Hopper?”

“Officially?” The pencil twirled through her fingers. “He had a nervous breakdown and tried to burn down the FDA facility over the hill. He was arrested and put in jail for arson. Since it was a federal building, he got fifteen years.”

A lump rose in Jonathan’s throat, along with a shine of unexpected tears, but he blinked and swallowed it away. He and Hopper weren’t close - but, if anyone didn’t deserve that kind of ending, he knew it was Hopper. 

He leaned forward unconsciously. She mimicked him, large, blue eyes never blinking. “Unofficially?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Of all people, you need an explanation of why he might want that building gone?”

“Chief,” Flo called from the other side of the room. “It’s Mr. Donavan again. He wants to know when he can open up his register again.”

Nancy jumped off the desk, ponytail swishing in her wake.

“Jonathan and I will head over now. The forensic team can get samples once Jonathan is done with the photos.”

She headed towards the door, purpose in her step, and Jonathan found himself simply watching her, chest a bundle of anxious energy. 

She stopped nay a foot from the door and turned to face him, raising an eyebrow that he can see from over twenty feet away.

“Coming?” she called to him.

He hastened to follow, slightly tripping over his own feet.

Somethings would never change. 

* * *

The first thing Nancy noticed was that he still wore jeans that were several sizes wrong - too short and somehow still baggy, and she felt a flash of unwarranted irritation that he still didn’t seem to have someone to look after him properly.

The second thing Nancy noticed was he still made her chest constrict in a way she just couldn’t properly understand.

“So,” Jonathan started, and she let out a breath, immeasurably glad it was him to break the awful silence in the car as they drove to the grocery store. “Why did you need a professional for something like this? Somewhere in the middle of my boss’s tirade I sort of made out it was just a missing persons case.”

Nancy chewed on the side of her cheek as she turned the corner. God bless small towns, and how everything was within a couple miles driving distance. 

She glanced over at him. His hair still flopped in his eyes, his too-large brown eyes, and she felt her chest stop for two beats and start again, making up for lost beats. 

She let out a breath, trying to decide whether or not she should suggest her thoughts or see if he came to the same conclusion she did without prompting.

After all, of anyone in the world, he would know.

“Nancy?” he prompted.

She let out a breath.

“Was Will just a missing persons case?” She said, and watched the way his face morphed in surprise.

“Will?” His laser focus was making her hands start to shake, and she had to dig her fingers into the foam steering wheel. “But Will was — ” He stopped. “You’re not saying — ?”

“Tell me what you think,” she evaded, turning onto the street of the store. 

* * *

Jonathan scurried out of the car far faster than Nancy was expecting and she found herself having to job to keep up with him.

“Jonathan,” she called, huffing slightly. “You need my badge to get past the tape.”

He stopped, brown boot tapping on the cracked pavement. The cold wind was blowing his hair into his eyes and he batted at it impatiently.

It was fucking cold, and if this was what Nancy was suggesting, they had no time to waste.

“Patience is a virtue,” she said as she caught up, falling into pace as they both began walking together into the store.

“Why can’t ‘hurrying the fuck up’ be a virtue?” he grumbled.

He could hear her affronted intake of air and found himself smiling as he took in the crime scene. 

Upon first glance, the register looked completely normal. He glanced back at Nancy. Her eyes were serious, her frown set, and she nodded at him to get a closer look.

Obediently, he shuffled forward.

After a few seconds of his eyes seemingly going in and out of focus, he saw what he was supposed to see, and felt his breath catch.

He looked back at Nancy, her crossed arms and tense stance.

“So?” she asked, and he knew what she was asking.

He waited a second, their eyes connected, and he felt like was transported back five years, the connection of  _ this is important, we’re doing something important together, we are something important together  _ snapping back into place like it never left.

He nodded and he could physically see her let out an unstable breath.

Jonathan took a few photos, fumbling with his zoom and focus. The ash didn’t seem to be truly physically apart of this realm, and it fumbled in and out of his photos.

Nancy was peering over his shoulder, and he glanced over, before whispering, “What should we do?” 

“The forensic team — ”

“The forensic team will take several days to do a full analysis on the substance, you know it. And,” he turned, face to face with Nancy and leaned in, his hair falling into his eyes. She looked up, meeting his gaze. “And,” his voice was oh so quiet, a whisper. “You know what it is. And you know what it means.”

She didn’t drop his gaze, holding it, her chin jutted out and clenched, and he suddenly got a flashback to 1983 so strongly and clearly that he could feel his hand clench to a fist without his permission.

“I’m not Hopper, Jonathan,” she said, voice quiet. “My solution isn’t to just - just jump in and punch everything illegally hoping for answers. He was overqualified and about lost his job for it - I’m underqualified and I want to be here. I can’t — do you have a suggestion?”

“I know where we should start.”

“Where?”

“Do you remember where my old house is?”

* * *

Nancy knocked on the door, shuffling her feet. She could see her breath in the crisp November air. It’d been a full day now since Mrs. Larson’s disappearance.

She looked over at Jonathan who was standing with his hands in his pockets, somehow nervous despite this being his own home, and Nancy was somehow reminded of an English class they had taken together back in high school - he had been picked on by their teacher, Mrs. Elkins, who had saw him doodling on his paper, and she had forced him to read the passage of Henry VIII they were on. 

She can still remember his halting, low timbre - “The third day comes a frost, a killing frost.”

Nancy shook her head, trying to clear it, and stared up into the motionless, clear blue sky. How she wished, sometimes, for those days before that week in ‘83 - when she couldn’t see Jonathan Byers, when the world wasn’t twice as large and unknowable, back when she thought herself grown-up but had been so lovingly oblivious.

The Upside Down sure had a way of turning her mind upside down.

The door opened with a crack, and Nancy could see Joyce pop her head out.

“Nancy, sweetheart, is this about Will? You didn’t have to come—”

“Hey Mom,” Jonathan interrupted. Nancy could see Joyce’s face freeze, and then the door flung open, so hard that Jonathan had to jump back not to be hit.

“Jonathan?” she cried, and with a motion almost too fast to comprehend, she was in his arms, and he was holding her up with a smile, his cheek pressed against her head. Nancy could no longer even see her face, it was pressed so hard into his shoulder.

She felt a stab of jealous longing - she hadn’t spoken to her mother since last Christmas, and had barely even noticed. She wasn’t a bad mother - but they never depended on each other, never were  _ something  _ to each other like this.

It was hard not to want.

Joyce jumped back after a second, raising a shaking hand to dry her eyes.

“Come on in, come on in kids, Jonathan, you can get the door, come on in,” she ushered. 

Nancy hardly recognized the place; but, to be fair, the only significant amount of time she spent inside had been at night, five years ago, in the dim lighting of a few hundred glowing Christmas bulbs. The memory was hazy anyway, the background of the event dull and featureless against the strangely vivid form of just several objects - the bear trap, her gun, Jonathan’s wrapped hand. The house in its rather dirty weathered form hadn’t exactly been on the forefront of her mind.

“Jonathan, what are you here for? You didn’t say you were coming.” He went to answer, but Joyce plowed on. Nancy idly catalogued that she was wearing a winter coat inside - it didn’t appear that they had any heating. “Do you want some tea? I’ll make you some tea. You still like Earl Gray?”

“Of course.”

“Of course you do,” she said, rushing past him into the kitchen, a hand grazing his shoulders as she passed by. “Jonathan, you didn’t say, why did you come by?”

Her voice was slightly muffled by her head being stuck in a cabinet. Jonathan shot Nancy a little smile, as if to say,  _ Moms,  _ and Nancy smiled back, even though she didn’t really have any idea.

“I put a request for time off when Will got bad again,” Jonathan said, and saw Nancy shoot him a questioning look. He nodded silently to her, confirming the it as truth. “It was denied, but Chief Nancy here needed a forensic photographer for a case she was working on. Fates aligned.”

Joyce ambled back into the room, her hair all a flutter. Nancy could see a packet of cigarettes sticking out of her sweater pocket from underneath her coat, and her hand itched. Joyce handed Jonathan a banana.

“Eat that, you’re still so skinny.” She sat back down on the couch and turned to Nancy. “A case? Whatever’s the matter?”

“Mrs. Larson disappeared two nights ago. I’m trying to track her down.”

Joyce’s eyes widen, and with a quick look between Nancy and Jonathan, it’s obvious what she was thinking.

“You both—you don’t think?”

“I think so, Mom.” Jonathan leaned in and put the banana on the table. Joyce was distracted enough to not notice. “Doesn’t it feel—feel wrong? Like before? Like it’s not right?”

“It hasn’t felt right since.” Joyce buried her head in her hands, before linking them together behind her neck. She started to rock back and forth. “I’ve been so caught up in Will—” She went still. “Are you here about Will? You don’t think?”

“Jonathan didn’t actually tell me why we are here,” Nancy tried to placate, but was sure it came out as scolding from the wounded look Jonathan shot her. 

“If it is back - the only people in the world we know of who went through the portal and came out are me, Nancy, you, Hopper, and Will. You and Hopper haven’t been back in; I know I haven’t; I’ll wager a guess Nancy here,” he gestures with his shoulder, “hasn’t either. That leaves Will. With how much he’s been gone lately - it’s just, it’s a possibility we need to think of.”

“What do you think is happening?” Joyce asked, her voice getting higher pitched as the sentence goes on. Nancy shoots Jonathan a slightly panicked look. “Do you think Will - Will is letting something out?”

“I don’t know, Mom,” Jonathan said, placating, obviously trying to starve off panic. “I don’t know. But he’s our only lead right now. What has he been up to lately?”

The buzzer for the hot water goes off, and they all jump. Joyce’s hands were shaking slightly, and Nancy clenched her fist, wanting somehow to comfort but having no idea how.

She came back a moment later and handed Jonathan a mug. Nancy expected the other mug, a big white one with  _ Indianapolis  _ written in bold letters, to be for Joyce herself, but to her surprise, Joyce hands it off to her. 

She sat back down, wiping her hands on her jeans.

“I guess I don’t know what to say. Jonathan, you know a lot of it, I guess. Nancy.” Joyce bit her lip. “I don’t know. He's not been the same since he got back. I don’t know how much Mike told you about Will. But coming back - look, there were a lot of complications.”

Nancy’s gaze softened.  “I know,” she said softly. “Mike was devastated when Will, just, you know, wasn’t—”

“Right,” Joyce interrupted. “Right. How is Mike by the way? I missed having him and the crew come around.”

“Oh he’s fine,” Nancy said, letting the conversation divert. “He and Lucas are planning to go to the same university in the fall. Both of them having some sort of Engineering in mind, I’m not sure what. Dustin has this girlfriend he’s smitten over that Mike loves to give him grief about. As far as I know, he’s undecided on what college or if college. He has made me look a lot of pros and cons lists, but I don’t think he’s decided on anything.”

“Lovely, that’s just lovely. They were always such smart boys. I always felt so bad for them after it all, losing a friend like that.”

Nancy wasn’t sure if she meant Will or Eleven, but nodded just the same.

“Mom,” Jonathan said softly. “Will?”

“Right, right, right, right, right. Will. He’s been - reclusive. He goes off by himself for long periods of time - you know that, Nancy, you’re always getting a call to be on the lookout.” Jonathan glanced over, obviously surprised. Nancy ignored him, focused on Joyce and her nervous energy. “He likes to be alone a lot. It was never - it wasn’t ever as bad as it has been the last month or so. He’s just been - wrong. It’s like something lifted, or opened, in him. And he’s just been changing. Last week, the middle school called. He was just sitting by a closed classroom, staring into space. I had to physically pull him to our car. I don’t know where he is most of the time, and he won’t talk to me, and he won’t - I don’t know if Will would open the gate again. I truly don’t.”

She buried her head in her hands, her face as pale as the walls behind her. Jonathan placed his tea down on the coffee table, next to the banana, and scooted over to his mom, throwing an arm around her shoulders. 

“Do you know where he is?” Jonathan asked.

“No,” she said, voice muffled by her hands. 

“Do you know—” He paused, and glanced and Nancy. She had no idea what he was trying to ask with his eyes, so she just shrugged. Jonathan continued, “Do you know where the gate may be?”

Joyce’s head snapped up.

“Jonathan Byers!” She grabbed both his shoulders and looked him dead in the eye. “You will not try to go to that place. You  _ will not.”  _

“Mom,” he said, placating and soft, maneuvering her hands off his shoulders. “I’m an adult, and if people are being hurt—”

“Jonathan Byers, I will not lose another son to this place, these, these things. If you’re going, so am I, end of discussion.”

They both turn to Nancy, like she has any say in this discussion at all, and she knew her expression was a bit deer-in-the-headlights, eyes big and mind blank.

“Well,” she said, stalling for a second. “Whatever we do, we aren’t going to do it today. I still need to question Mr. Larson, and have some administrative things on the case. How about I go, and leave you guys to catch up, and we can decide what to do tomorrow? Maybe Will will show up - if not, then we can decide what to do.”

Nancy stood and brushed imaginary dirt off her jeans. Jonathan awkwardly rose as well, as if to walk her out, but Nancy waved him down. “Stay with your mom, Jonathan. I’ll be back tomorrow. It’ll be okay.”

_ The third day brings a killing frost,  _ her mind supplied unwittingly, and she forced the thought down with a grimace. 

“Okay,” Jonathan replied softly. “Tomorrow here?”

She nodded. “I’ll pick you up before my shift.”

“Bye Nancy,” Joyce said, her hand tightening on Jonathan’s leg.

“Bye Byers,” Nancy replied. 

The light was just starting to dim outside, the sun making it’s way past the trees, and she could feel the November chill emanating from her bones. The air was filled with the tension of knowledge, knowledge that all was not well, that strange things were afoot.

She headed back to her car, ready to drive towards the dimming light, and hoping beyond hope that things weren’t what they seemed. 

* * *

Small talk was difficult when there were so many large topics looming over their heads. There was so much he didn’t want, or know how, to discuss, that his mom’s choice was almost a relief, as much as he didn’t particularly know how to tackle it himself.

“So, how was it seeing Nancy again?”

“Fine,” he shrugged. He took a sip of his tea - still warm. “When did she become Nancy Harrington?”

“Oh, this past year. I got an invite to the wedding, which was really sweet. It was a bad weekend for Will though, so I didn’t get to go.”

Jonathan nodded, quiet. The crickets and katydids are loud here, the natural versions of the city’s cars and people. 

“Whatever happened between you?” Joyce asked, brushing his hair back from his eyes. “The whole - thing - happened, and then I never heard about her from you again. It all seemed so odd.”

“Nothing happened,” Jonathan answered honestly. “Life went on, and they forgot.”

“Did they?” Joyce asked softly, and Jonathan looked down at his hands, unable to respond.

* * *

“How was it?” Steve asked. He snuggled into her back, head into her shoulder, arms around her waist. She could feel his cotton pajamas against her cheek, and she pushed herself back into his arms, basking in the heat and comfort.

“Which part?”

“The Jonathan part.”

Nancy sighed and grabbed at his hands, holding them tightly. Her hair was down and wet from her shower, and it was seeping through her silk pajamas.

“I don’t know. He was - how he always was. Remarkably the same, really.”

“Did you mention me?” Steve asked into her shoulder.

“No. You didn’t come up.”

“How is that possible? You don’t mention me every minute?” 

She smiled despite herself, and felt Steve’s arms tighten momentarily.

“I wouldn’t normally press—” She snorted. As if. “I wouldn’t,” he insisted. “But I tried so hard, so many times senior year and he just always rebuffed me.”

“I remember,” Nancy replied softly. 

“I just figured he never got over the whole punching, possessive, hating me thing. He always ran before I really had a chance—”

“I know,” Nancy interrupted. “I know. I’ll see if I can bring it up tomorrow. It’s just - it’s awkward. He always makes me so—”

“Wrongfooted,” Steve completed, which was about as accurate as Nancy could hope for. 

They go quiet, listening to the bugs twitter outside, Nancy watching the glowing moon with slowly drooping eyes.

“Nance,” Steve said, drowsy, the words dripping from his lips like molasses. “Nance, if you still are open, you can still offer—”

“You sure?”

“You should have great things.”

“Hey.” She elbowed him in the stomach. “You’re a great thing.”

“I know,” he said into her shoulder. “But so was he. And—”

“K, Steve,” she interrupted. “Okay.”

“Kay.” 

He kissed her shoulder, and she could feel him drop off.

She couldn’t, the tension of the unknown creatures in the night still unbearable.

* * *

Jonathan was waiting on the steps the next morning.

“Are you a morning person?” Nancy asked, stepping out of the car. “Because I’m not sure our friendship can survive that.”

“I’m trying not to wake my mom,” he said. He was in a jean jacket, and was suddenly wishing he’d brought something heavier. He wasn’t about to go back into the house and risk waking Joyce, however, as he knew she’d try to force her way along. “If you went inside, you’d surely wake her.”

“Why would I wake her but you wouldn’t?”

“You have feet like a T-Rex,” he said, just for something to say. He let himself into her car, and is almost glad he can’t see her face to see her reaction.

The way she slammed the car door might be enough of an answer.

She pulled out of the driveway, the tires spinning dirt behind them, and they make their way down his road.

“Where are we going?” Jonathan asked. 

“To find the gate.”

His fingers paused from where he was poking at the power windows. He turned to stare at her. 

She was a picture of put together - her brown hair up in a graceful ponytail, a corduroy jacket over her police uniform - but he could see her fingers tapping on the wheel, her gaze too sturdy out the windshield to be casual.

“How in the hell are we supposed to find the gate?”

“Well, we did it before.”

He stared at her face for a moment, scrutinizing, and then the penny dropped. 

“Oh, fuck no. I am not going to trapeze around the woods with you looking for a singular tree that happened to have a portal five years ago. I will not do it.”

* * *

Jonathan stepped through the woods with a scowl.

“I don’t like this plan.”

“I’m well aware,” Nancy said. He had been repeating it, with his mouth and his body language, for about a half hour. He calmed slightly when she gave him a gun and a lighter from the back of her police car, but she can see the tension slowly seep back into his shoulders, and how he is getting surlier the longer they walk through the trees.

It’s probably a dumb plan, she was well aware, but it was the only one they had.

“Look, this is vaguely where we were before. We might find it.”

The trees, mostly old and oak, all look the same, and Jonathan apparently knew it, with how he did a dramatic look around. “Where we were before? Oh good, I thought were were wandering lost, looking for something that barely existed in the first place, that we don’t even really remember where was anyway.”

“Always with the smart mouth,” she snapped.

“I resent that,” he said, stalking past her. “I have a smart everything.”

She grit her teeth, hands twitching slightly around her gun, but she made to follow him.

“Do you have a better idea?”

“What’s the thought process here?” Jonathan stopped, arms crossing, and god, it was like five years back, and Nancy felt such a wave of nostalgia and vertigo she almost stumbled. “We’re thinking Will may be opening the gate - but for what purpose? What does he get out of it? Just - why? And he let this, this thing back out. And we’re hoping to find the gate so we can, what, put it back in? Kill it? What’s the goal here, Nancy?”

“I don’t know.” He stared at her. She threw up her hands. “I don’t know everything, Jonathan. I don’t where to start with this. We’re at a slight disadvantage, not having a superpowered girl to save our asses. But we know it’s probably this, this  _ thing.  _ And we know this thing comes out of portals, one that was once here. It’s a way to start.”

She could see him deflate. 

“Okay,” he responded, voice much calmer. There’s something intensely vulnerable about calm Jonathan, and she doesn’t know how he does it - how he lets down so many barriers, without even seemingly trying. “What about Will? Shouldn’t we be trying to find him?”

“If our gate theory is correct, he may be here,” Nancy pointed out, and he nodded in acquiesce. 

“Do we even know if the door to the Upside Down was ever properly shut?”

“I don’t know.”

“Which means probably no.”

She shrugged.

He turned to continue walking, and she followed.

“Can I ask you something?” Jonathan said. His back was turned, and she couldn’t see his face, just the line of his shoulders and the crunch of his boots.

“Of course.”

“Why the police?”

“Why not?”

“No reason.” He slowed down enough to match pace with her. His face, calm and open, all traces of anger gone, and she’s just - there’s something about him, calm and open, that makes her insides turn into giant question marks. It’s remarkably similar to Steve, who makes her stomach go into giant exclamation points.

Similar feelings - different punctuation, different sentences in her life. But, still, oh so similar. 

“It’s just - you were actually good at school. I would have thought you’d go be a doctor, or a scientist, or something. First USA woman in space.”

“Sally Ride was the first American woman in space,” Nancy replied absently, trying to calm her stomach. “Happened in 1983.”

“See, that’s what I’m talking about.”

“Are you implying only idiots go into the force?”

“No, but the shoe and fitting.”

“Jonathan.”

“Sorry. But you’re not answering.”

“It’s just - after everything we went through. After Will, after the hunting, after the—” She blew a stray hair from her face that had been loosened from the ponytail. “After all that, I realized I liked it. The solving the crime, the confronting the bad guy. Albeit in an unconventional manner - but it felt good, to move away from the abstract. To have a problem and to be the one to find the concrete answer? And to help people along the way? And get the adrenaline rush with the fight? Nothing compares.” She smiled weakly at him. “And I always was a good shot.”

“So it’s all been as exciting as 1983?”

“Last week someone reported their dog ran away.”

He huffed, and, at long last, his smile came out.

* * *

“Since we’re getting along momentarily,” Nancy said, stepping over a large branch, and Jonathan could feel himself inwardly sigh. If there ever was a phrase to indicate bad things afoot, that was it. “Can I ask you something as well?”

“Go for it,” he said, jumping over a dead log. 

“That time, senior year, when you hit Tommy in the face. Why'd you do it?”

“Oh God,” he said. He could feel Nancy’s eyes on his back, but he refused to look back and meet them. They were too big - Disney eyes. He always was a sucker for Bambi. “Tommy said a stupid comment about you, Steve and me. Something about you wanting a threesome. He deserved to get punched in the face. He’s an asshole.”

“Yeah, he was,” Nancy agreed. “I hate that term, threesome. Vulgar. Though not, essentially, inaccurate.”

Jonathan stumbled from the force of his turn. She stopped too, moving out of the way of his flailing limbs.

The words hung in the air, almost visibly stuck in between the two of them, and a part of Jonathan wants to reach out and cling to them with white knuckles.

After a moment, he is able to stutter out a far too loud, _ “What?”  _

“What?” she responded defensively. 

“Not  _ inaccurate? _ ”

“We spent a lot of time hunting you down senior year, Jonathan.” She clearly was trying to step ahead of him, to miss his eyes, but he refused to let this conversation happen to dead air or to dead trees, and kept pace ahead of her, not turning away.

“Yeah, because you felt obligated and because he wanted to punch my face in for liking you,” Jonathan countered.

This time it’s Nancy who stops awkwardly fast, her eyes somehow even larger.

_ “What?”  _

“Are you trying to tell me that this was,” his hands flew in the air in front of him, gesturing like he was trying to pick the right word out of an invisible dictionary. “I don’t know, a love triangle or something all along?”

Nancy blinked. 

An odd, small smile started to take over her face.

Jonathan still felt like he may have had a cinderblock fall on his head, for all his reasoning cortex’s were working at that moment.

“Never really understood that term, love triangle.” She stepped closer. “In triangles, each point is connected to the other point. There isn’t one corner that is attached to two, and then the other two are stray dots. They are connected as well. A triangle isn’t a carat.”

“A carrot?”

“A carat—” She sighed impatiently. “An upside down V. Not the point, Jonathan.”

“I think it kind of is the point, actually,” he replied, slightly dazed. 

“Jonathan—”

“You can’t do this,” he said. He took a giant step back, his foot crunching on the dead autumn leaves. “Nancy, you can’t do this to Steve.”

“To Steve?” repeated Nancy, her brows furrowing. “What, do you think I’m doing this on a whim? Like we haven’t talked about it?”

He stared, blankly. “It’s been five years,” he said slowly. “I don’t even live in state. How in the hell would you have talked about this?”

Nancy’s cheeks redden slightly, but she held his gaze. “Back then. Back when we were teenagers. Senior year.”

“Senior—” he repeated, baffled. His voice raised, repeating again, “Senior year? You thought about it enough to  _ talk about it? _ ” 

“We—look, something between passed during the Event.” She crossed her arms, her hands clutching her elbows of her corduroy coat. “You know it did, you can’t deny it. Steve felt it too. We just—I mean, we didn’t know what we were doing. How do you even propose something like that?”

“You could just say it, out loud, like normal human beings!”

“We tried!” she cried, finally losing her composure, her hands waving in the air. He glanced at the gun, suddenly slightly uneasy. “We tried. Steve tried to sit with you, and talk with you, and I tried to have lunch with you, and I tried to talk with you - and you’d just run away!”

“I thought he was, I don’t know, trying to be nice to ease his conscience or something! Or get close to me to ward me off of you! Not because he wanted to! And I—I didn’t want to make things difficult, like you had to pick between dating him and being friends with me. I wanted to make it easier on you, by taking myself out of the equation.”

Her eyebrows rose and her hands were on her hips, but one hand is still on the gun. He doubted it was intentional. “You yell at  _ me  _ for making assumptions!”

He stepped closer. He could feel his raising body temperature for the fight, warm against the cool air. “I barely knew you, I had no self-esteem, you were pretty and he was popular - why would my first assumption be that you want a  _ threesome?” _

_ “I don’t like that word!”  _ Nancy yelled, stomping her foot.

A bird flew off a branch above their heads. 

“Well, pick another word, then! ANY word. You never said jack shit to me - why are you angry I didn’t know what you wanted? You could have said something!” 

“We were teenagers!” she yelled back, hands dropping to her side. “Teenagers are idiots! We didn’t know what to do.”

“Oh, because you seem to know what you’re doing now so well,” he snapped. 

She stilled. An angry breath followed.

“Jonathan,” she said, voice tight and her hands clenched into fists by her side. She seemed more controlled, but as tightly wound as before, and Jonathan was fiercely frightened of her.

“This is ridiculous. You just - you have this way of making me feel like a teenager again. And not in all the good ways. Steve, he - he always made me feel older. Sexually and in my life - he made me envision myself as a wife, as someone with a mortgage and a job and children. But you - I just got into a yelling match with you in the woods and I stomped my foot like a first grader, and Steve broke your toys because you hurt his feelings - Jesus, for someone so mature in so many ways you always made me feel like a little girl, and I’m not a  _ child  _ anymore, Jonathan, I have a job and a husband and a life—”

“And yet here you are, in the woods, with your hands on your hips, telling me I make you feel things that make you uncomfortable. Clearly, you’ve grown.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“Good, I’ve been training to be since I was a kid and Steve pushed me down on the playground for being weird.”

“Now who’s being the child?”

Her big, big blue eyes are focused right on his, and he can’t - he can’t do this, he can’t force himself to realize his own self sabotage, how he might have cost himself his own happiness, the agony of what he may have had and may have lost, and the terrifying hope of the unknown of what he may be being offered. It’s a swarm of emotion, a perfect storm that’s making his hands literally shake, his brain’s chemicals unable to process this at a speed that’s equivalent to his emotional capacity, and he just - he doesn’t know what to do, how to respond positively, because then he might  _ have  _ instead of  _ want -  _ and that’s a line he’s never been allowed to cross in his life, in any regard, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Almost a full minute passed in complete silence, an impasse neither knew how to touch. Nancy shuffled her feet on the Earth, sending several chipmunks running throughout the leaves. 

“Look, if this is just about not liking Steve—”

“It’s not about Steve,” he interrupted, because, God, it’s not. “I know he can be a decent person. If all that was genuine senior year, then, yeah, I know.”

“He felt so guilty.”

“He’s not the only one.”

She was back to hugging her arms, her red corduroy jacket familiar to him for some reason, though it couldn’t have been the same one from high school. 

“Look, Nancy, this isn’t getting us anywhere. The argument or just,” he waved his hands wildly. “Going madly throughout the woods without a direction. How about you go home to Steve, and I can come over in a bit, and we can talk it all out.”

“Why don’t you just come with me?” she asked, voice small. 

“I have something to do first.” She raised an eyebrow. He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “I have an idea. About the gate.”

* * *

Nancy pulled up to her house.

The lights were out.

The hose was running. 

* * *

“Dustin Henderson speaking.”

Jonathan smiled at his voice. Seventeen, and he sounded the same he did at twelve. 

“Dustin, it’s Jonathan Byers.”

“Jonathan!” His obvious delight has Jonathan smiling at his feet, inordinately pleased. “It’s good to hear from you, man. It’s been ages since you’ve been around.”

“Yeah, adult life and all that. Look, I was thinking about - about all that that happened five years ago.”

“Oh?” The immediately wariness in his voice has Jonathan rethinking his strategy at how to approach this question. He threw his first idea, writing an article, out the window. 

“Yeah. I know this is seemingly random - but, I just couldn’t stop thinking about it, given I didn’t know. How did you guys find the gate back then? How did that all - happen, anyway?”

There's a surprised silence for several moments. “We didn’t really find the gate.” Dustin sighed. “El and Lucas and Mike all had to be  _ so dramatic  _ and we couldn’t really execute my plan, which obviously would have worked. We had a compass, and the gate was true north to it. But El was manipulating it - did you know she could manipulate other objects like that?”

“Yeah, according to Mike, she was really something.”

“According to Mike,” Dustin mocked, and Jonathan had to hide his snort. “But yeah, she was awesome. Superpowers, bro. But, anyway, it was El who did it in the end. She just—” He made a loud  _ woosh  _ noise. “Threw the thing through a portal she made. She was  _ awesome _ .”

“But the compass thing?”

“Would have totally worked.” Dustin sighed. “Have you noticed the logical plan never seems to be the one people choose?”

Jonathan laughed this time, full and outright. “I actually have noticed that.”

“Hey, give my best to Will, would you?” Dustin asked, and Jonathan can feel his chest tighten. 

He looked over to where Joyce was pacing by the couch, hand fingering her necklace. He turned back to the white phone, and leaned his head up against the wallpapered wall. He closed his eyes.

“I will, Dustin. Thank you.”

“What was this all about, anyway?” Dustin asked. 

“I was just wondering.”

“Uh huh.” Damn kid was always too smart.

“Goodbye, Dustin.”

“Bye Jonathan.”

He hung up the phone, slightly hitting the rotary in the process. Joyce looked over, eyes wide and teeth worrying her lip.

“So?”

“We have a lead.”

The phone rang, sharp and shrill, and they both jumped.

Jonathan picked it up.

* * *

“Jonathan.”

“Nancy,” he said, and she could feel herself take a breath, like her muscles finally were able to calm down slightly. She was reminded forcibly of that day on her bed, where he was able to make her just stop worrying, stop thinking, if only for a minute. 

He’s always been a calming presence. 

And so, her next few words were less manic than they would have been to literally anyone else in the world. 

“Steve’s gone.”

“Gone?”  

She could hear his response, soft and tinny, but it was almost clouded by the water rushing in her ears. 

Her fingernails were digging into her palms, little reminders she was alive, this was real.

“Yeah. Gone.”

“What’d you mean ‘gone’? Could he be at the grocery store? Doing his hair in the car?”

“No, Jonathan.” She hit her head up against the wall. It was the ugly flowered one that they kept meaning to replace. “I mean - he’s gone. Will gone. Barb gone.”

“I mean, how—”

“ _ Jonathan,”  _ she snapped, finally losing patience. “It feels different. You know it feels different.”

“Okay, what’d you calling me for? Shouldn’t you be calling, I don’t know, the police?”

“I  _ am  _ the police _ ,  _ you moron. Are we not in this together?”

A pause.

“I have a lead. We'll come over and we'll get started.”

She breathed out, and she knew he could hear the panic in it.

“Nancy,” he said, soft and soothing. 

She turned so she was leaning up against the wall. She stared across her living room, blankly looking at their brand new VCR that Steve had been so excited about buying. 

“We’ll find him,” Jonathan assured. “Trust me.”

She let out an unstable breath. “I always did.”

* * *

“What took you so long?” Nancy asked, sliding into the back of his Mom’s Pinto. If she was surprised to see Joyce, she knew better than to mention it.

“We had to stop to get a compass,” he replied.

“A compass?” She leaned forward, between the driver’s and the passenger’s seat, right into Jonathan’s space. 

“Yeah.” He pulled it out of the grocery bag and handed it over to her. Her hands - small hands - turn it over gently.

“What’s it for?”

“Dustin said that last time the gate was always due north. We’re giving it a try.”

She smiled at him, small and strained, and he was suddenly hit by the fact that Steve and her were married, and she knew what could happen this time - her calm, level headedness was an act of silent bravery that wasn’t really possibly for him to acknowledge.

He just gave her an awkward smile, knowing it wasn’t enough. Her head dropped into her lap, and he wished he could do something, anything, in his power to help.

He held the compass, directing.

* * *

“Isn’t this the path to the—”

“Middle school, yes,” Joyce interrupted. Nancy swallowed, and looked up at Jonathan. By his worried expression, the significance wasn’t lost on him either. 

“Didn’t you say Will was found at the middle school last week?” Nancy asked.

“What are you saying?” Joyce asked. Nancy could see Jonathan’s hand move to grasp his mom’s elbow - he always was a calming force.

“This whole time, we’ve been wondering what he opened to let out - and why.”

“Yeah?”

“Well,” said Nancy, her fingernails tapping on the backseat, slow, rythmic, her eyes stuck absently on an empty spot in space. “Gates work two ways. Maybe he wasn’t trying to let something out. And maybe it wasn’t an accident.”

“Meaning?” Jonathan demanded.

“Meaning - if he wasn’t trying to let something out, maybe he was trying to get back in.”

They all could feel Joyce press the pedal down further, and the Pinto sailed across the highway.

* * *

It was late enough in the evening that the middle school was fully empty, for which Nancy was fiercely grateful.

The hallways were fully dark, illuminated only by Nancy’s sheriff flashlight, and it felt like darkest part of midnight. 

Jonathan’s hand was starting to sweat around the compass. 

“Mike told me about what happened last time,” Nancy whispered. It wasn’t necessary to be quiet, he supposed, but something about the air was thick with electricity, brimming with the tension of what was going to happen, and he couldn’t fault her for it. “If I remember this place like I think I do, we’re headed for the classroom it all happened.”

“Do you think when she jumped worlds it might have created a rift there?” Joyce asked from behind. 

“It’s as good a theory as any,” Nancy replied. 

“Do we know whatever happened to her? Eleven, I mean?” Jonathan asked at a whisper. The compass had them take a left, and yes, they were headed straight where Nancy thought they were. 

Nancy goes to respond, talk of power and self sacrifice that shouldn’t be expected of anyone, let alone a young and abused girl, when the all the lights above their heads flicker. 

Jonathan and Nancy stopped in their tracks, and one hand of Nancy’s unconsciously grabbed Jonathan’s elbow.  

Both their eyes trailed up. 

One second. 

Two seconds.

Three.

And they illuminate, full glow. 

Both Nancy and Jonathan turned their faces away, eyes instinctively closing, hands raising to shield from the brightness, and they can hear Joyce in the back make a sound of pain. 

“Jonathan.” The hand tightened on his elbow. “It’s the monster. We need to go.”

She tugged once, harsh and insistent.

The light above their head dimmed completely, and Jonathan looked up, surprised. He could hear both Joyce and Nancy insistently calling his name, and there went Nancy, turning on her heel, her military boot squeaking on the linoleum. 

Jonathan reached forward and grabbed Nancy’s sleeve, pulling her back.

“Jonathan—”

“I don’t think that’s the monster, Nancy.”

The lights in front of them glowed. 

One. 

Two. 

Three. 

Joyce and Nancy stilled, eyes wide.

They looked up to the lights.

Another one illuminated, down the corridor. Towards the room where it happened.

“It couldn’t be,” Joyce breathed. “After all this time?”

* * *

The light in-front of the science room shone to full capacity before shattering in front of their feet.

If that wasn’t a sign, Nancy thought, what was?

“Get back,” she said to both Jonathan and Joyce, gesturing for them to get behind her. They did, obediently. She walked forward a touch, her boots crunching the destroyed glass from above. She pulled out her gun, and she can see both Joyce and Jonathan take a further step back.

With aim, she fired, and the lock flew off.

She turned, and by Jonathan’s look, you’d think she killed JFK. 

“You learn things in the academy, we can talk about it later.”

His hands went up in a placating gesture, and Joyce huffs from behind him, pushing him back slightly, and hurried into the room.

Nancy and Jonathan follow, and there it was - a gateway. Ugly and pulsing and as horrifying as before. 

“Jesus Christ,” Joyce breathed.

“Let’s go,” Nancy said, heading for the gateway. She felt a hand on her elbow, and, to her surprise, it’s not Jonathan, but Joyce. She felt her eyebrows raise without her permission, and can’t hide her confusion.

“Nancy, darling, let me go. I’ve been in before—”

“So have I,” Nancy interrupted. “And it’s  _ my  _ husband in there.”

Joyce’s eyes raised slightly, watching Jonathan over Nancy’s head.

“Jonathan, you stay and—”

“As if, Mom,” he interrupted. She pursed her lips. “I’m going.”

“This isn’t a discussion. I am not losing another child to that place.”

“This isn’t a discussion,” he replied. “I’m going.”

Nancy isn’t overly interested in the mother-son stubborn off. With a hand on Jonathan’s arm, she tugged him forward, and with a hand at Joyce’s back, pushed her towards the gate.

“Together, or not at all.”

* * *

They all made it through unharmed.

It’s just as Jonathan remembered - dark, dank, other-worldy in all the worst ways. It was the school, but it wasn’t, filled with vines and damp forestry, and the tell-tale pieces of ash swirling around their heads. 

No one was around. 

* * *

Nancy was the first to see Mrs. Larson.

“Oh, holy God,” she said, hand raising to her mouth unwillingly, her eyes closing, but unable to block out the image of the murdered old woman.

She could feel Jonathan’s arm snake around her, and she let him pull her in, her face hiding in his chest.

He was strong, certain, a grounding force that she clung to with white knuckles and a clear head.

“Oh my god,” Joyce said, but in a tone so wildly different from Nancy’s that she couldn't help but look up. She could feel Jonathan tense, startled, and she’s confused - until she too could see the little form in a pink dress, a large plaid shirt around the shoulders.

“Eleven?” Nancy said, astonished. 

* * *

Joyce was by her side in an instant, her arm around her shoulders, pulling Eleven onto her lap with a force that surprised even Jonathan, and he had grown up with the woman.

“It’s really her,” Nancy said, stunned. “She’s - she’s the same age.”

“Time must work differently here,” Jonathan murmured, just loud enough for Nancy to catch it.

“I wonder—”

“Nancy!” Jonathan exclaimed, interrupting, loud enough for her to jump, and suddenly Jonathan was pulling her forward, past Eleven, into a darkened corner.

“Jonathan, what—”

And then she saw what he must have in the first place - Steve’s shoes.

“Oh my God.”

She was by his side in an instant, hands reaching for his jugular - and yes, there was a pulse, strong and real and pumping.

“Oh my God,” she said again, her head falling onto his chest. She could feel it rise and fall, and Jonathan's hand on her back almost has her shaking. 

“He’s fine. Just needs to get out of here.”

Nancy grasped Steve’s hand, cold but alive, and squeezed once. Then, she turned, and quickly shuffled over to where Eleven was still sitting in Joyce’s lap. 

“Eleven? Can you speak? Do you know what’s going on?”

Eleven reaches up slowly, eyes unblinking, hand wavering slightly. She touched Nancy’s hair softly, letting her dirty fingers fall through the hair.

“Pretty,” she said softly. “Pretty.”

“Eleven.” Nancy’s hands went to her shoulders, and just barely resisted the urge to shake her. “Eleven, what happened? How are you here? What’s going on?”

Eleven blinked once, slow, like a computer rebooting after a long period of sleep mode. She raised a hand, bruised and shaking, and pointed at Nancy’s police star pinned to her vest.

“Police. He helped me. He was a friend. Food. Eggos. Kept me alive. Stopped. I don’t — I don’t know why.” Her eyes widen, and her hands tighten on Nancy’s jacket. “Weakened. I’m weak - the door. I can’t hold the door anymore. He kept pulling.”

Nancy turned to Jonathan, eyes wide. “She must be what’s been keeping the gate shut all this time. And, Hopper, oh my god, Hopper—”

“Hopper must have somehow been reaching her through the gateway. When he was put away—”

“He burned it down to try to save her. If she came back and they were still there - what would she even come back to?” Nancy let out a quick breath. “He was trying to give her a place to come back to.”

“But they put him away, and there was no one there to help her, to feed her, to strengthen her. And if it’s true she’s been holding the door shut—”

“And if she’s weakened—”

“The door opened,” Eleven finished. “The door opened?”

Nancy and Jonathan’s eyes met in wordless communication, silent horror for the situation at hand. 

“You mean all this time,” Joyce said, voice soft with wonder. “all these years—it’s been you? Holding the door shut, keeping us all safe?”

Eleven nodded. “For friends.”

“We need to get back to the door, immediately.”

* * *

Jonathan would never complain about it outloud, ever, under pain of death, but Steve was incredibly heavy, and they walked a much greater distance than anyone had thought. He was thoroughly aching by the time they reached the gate.

“We need to get Steve through and to medical attention,” Nancy said. “But what do we do then? We still don’t know what opened the gate, and the creature is still out there, and we still don’t know how to close the gate.”

“Pulled,” Eleven mumbled. 

“Shhh,” Joyce comforted. She was holding her close, arm around her shoulders. Eleven was clinging back around her stomach.

“Eleven,” Jonathan crouched down. She stared at him - God, those eyes. Bambi eyes, Disney eyes. So young, so impossibly old. “Eleven, how do you permanently shut the door? Eleven, how do you shut it for good?”

“Held from the inside.”

Jonathan stood and exchanged a glance with Nancy.

“What are you two glancing about?” Joyce asked, pulling Eleven closer.

“Mom - if she’s what’s keeping the portal closed—”

The grip on Eleven went tighter, and looked almost painful. “We are not leaving without her! End of discussion!”

“Mom, I don’t—”

“We are not leaving a  _ child  _ in here! She saved your brother, she’s been holding the gate, she is a  _ little girl,  _ we are  _ not— _ ”

“I know Mom,  _ I know _ , but what do we do?”

“Jonathan Byers, if you’re suggesting—”

“I’m  _ saying  _ that I don’t know what to  _ do.  _ If she’s the only thing holding the portal between our worlds together, and it has to be from the inside, what—what do we do? If we take her, what happens? To our world?”

“I don’t know, I don’t  _ care,  _ we aren’t  _ leaving her Jonathan _ !”

“Mom, what do we do?”

“Guys,” Nancy interrupted. Jonathan glanced over. “We need to finish this conversation.”

“Soon, Nancy,” Jonathan dismissed, eyes back on Joyce. “Give us a second.”

“How about now rather than sooner?”

Jonathan turned fully at the quaver in her voice.

Her hand was trembling.

“We have company.”

All three turn in tandem, and, not seven feet away, was Will.

* * *

Sort of.

He was Will, but he wasn’t - a grotesque, bastardized monster version of Will, a half formed demogorgon, and Jonathan could feel the final pages of the book turning - the last chapter started, the ending of this tale that he so wished had never begun.

“Will,” Joyce cried. She took an aborted step forward, only stopped by Eleven’s strong arms around her middle.

“Not safe,” Eleven said. “Not safe. He pulled.”

“Pulled?” Nancy repeated. 

“Pulled the gate open,” Will answered, and all four of them jumped. “She held it closed, but I kept pulling. I had to - had to get back.”

“Why?” Joyce asked, hand still raised towards her boy. “Why would you want to come back?”

“I,” he raised his hands, deformed and half scaled. “I was turning. I was wanting - wanting to hurt. And then, then I did.”

Jonathan's mind flitted to the dead form of Mrs. Larson. 

“I had to come back. Lock myself up before, before anyone else. But she kept holding.”

Eleven hid her face in Joyce’s stomach.

“I kept turning,” Will continued. Jonathan could feel Nancy’s arm go around his shoulder, holding his shaking form in place. He wanted to drop Steve, but he couldn’t physically move. “I kept - I tried to hide away when it came back. It always went away. But this time - it didn’t. And people, people got hurt. I had to—”

He was losing the ability to speech, Jonathan realized.  _ And I’m losing the ability to stand,  _ he thought, his legs shaking. 

“Here, you’re safe from me. Here is where I belong.”

“No, no, no, no, no,” Joyce said, little words of nonsense, no meaning, cried into the little pockets of space in between her and Will. 

“You need to go,” Will said. His arms were starting to shake and quiver, transform into something larger, far more hideous. 

No one moved.

“Go!” he bellowed.

Nancy stumbled backwards with the force of it. She corrected herself as best she could, and, with shaking arms, collected Steve from Jonathan, and headed out of the gate.

“Will, we might able to—” Jonathan started. He was kneeling on the soft Earth of the upside down, filthy and upset and so out of his depth. 

“It’s the only way,” Will interrupted. “There always has to be a sacrifice to win the game.”

His whole body was starting to expand, morph, but Jonathan could see him forcibly push it down, just enough to gain control for a few more moments. 

He met Jonathan’s eyes, and, once again, he was a little brother, not a monster. Jonathan bit his lip, tears starting to swell.

Will made direct eye contact with Eleven. He smiled at her, little and human. “We’re square,” he said.

She nodded, and raised a hand in farewell.

“Will, God, no, Will,” Joyce cried.

Will looked at both.

“Goodbye Mom. Goodbye Jonathan.”

He looked down at his own hand, and the scaly, engorged fingers quivered. 

He clenched his fist, and said, almost more to himself, “No more.”

With a hand up, he screeched, long and monstrous and piercing, and the force it throws Jonathan, Eleven, and Joyce through the gate.

With one last look at his changing form, the gate disappears, held tightly shut from the inside. 

* * *

“Mom Byers?”

It was Eleven. She was still sitting on the ground, hands around her knees, large plaid shirt dwarfing her, and almost covering her dirty, stained pink dress. Her chin was on her knees, eyes moist and large.

Joyce looked up, chest heaving, but suppressing the noises of grief.

“I’m sorry,” Eleven said, voice breaking. She hid her eyes in her knees. “I’m sorry I couldn’t—Friends are—I’m sorry he’s gone, and not me. Sorry I couldn’t—”

Joyce blinked, astonishment and horror halting her sorrow momentarily. A breath, and then, she ambled forward and threw her arms around Eleven’s shoulders, cradling her to her chest. “No, no, no, don’t ever say that. Come here, come here, come here, you brave girl, I’m so glad to see you again, you gave me five more years with my boy, you are so much, you are so much, come here, come here, you’re going to stay with me, and you’re going to be just fine, we’re both going to be just fine,” Joyce babbled into Eleven’s head, sweet nothings, lips murmuring against the shaved scalp. Eleven’s arms came up and hold Joyce’s, eyes pressed closed.

Nancy was on the ground, arms around Steve, who appears to be stirring. She looked up at Jonathan, eyes wide.

“We won,” she said in disbelief. 

“You did,” Jonathan said, nodding down to where Steve was underneath her arm. He jerked his head towards where Joyce was still cradling Eleven. “Did we?”

* * *

Joyce Byers was standing outside the glass looking on to Eleven’s hospital room.

Jonathan quietly walked up beside her. She jerked her head to the side slightly, acknowledging him. 

“Is she going to be okay?” he asked. His voice seemed impossibly loud, echoing in the hospital hall, and he pressed his arm up against his mother, in some deeply ingrained instinct of protection and comfort. 

“Yeah,” Joyce said, voice scratchy and unused. “Full recovery.”

Jonathan nodded, looking at the ground. 

“And you?” Jonathan asked, refusing to look her in the eye. “Will you be okay? After losing a son?”

A sob passed her lips, but it’s swallowed almost immediately. 

She was still the strongest woman he ever knew. The only possible contender was the still figure across from them.

“I lost a son five years ago,” she said, voice breaking. “I never got him back, not really. I knew after that first month, I knew. Just like you knew.”

Jonathan knew, but he never thought she did. “You always seemed fine.”

“Sometimes people need to believe in something they know isn’t real, just for the sake of their own peace.”

Jonathan nodded.

They both silently watch Eleven’s still, unconscious form on the bed. The heart rate monitor looked steady, green lines beeping out rhythmically. The IV she was hooked up to was half full and clear, like it always was in the movies, so Jonathan assumed she was fine.

She looked so small.

“She saved a world she wasn’t even a part of. Twice,” said Joyce softly.

Jonathan raised a hand to her shoulder and squeezed it once before dropping it back down to his side. 

The amount of courage in that little frame - it’s almost unthinkable, not-understandable, like the horrors of genocide or the depth of the ocean or the vastness of space. 

“I don’t know where she’ll go,” Joyce said, broken. She raised a hand to her nose, sniffling. “She’s not in any legal system, and—and the nurse said usually they just go to foster care.”

Jonathan was silent.

The heart rate monitor stayed steady.

Joyce sniffled, and let out a slow, angry breath.

Eleven’s chest moved up, down, up, down, up, down.

Jonathan put his hands in his pockets.

“To hell with this,” Joyce said, resolute, hands tightening into fists. “I’m bringing her back. I’m taking her.”

“Of course you are, Mom,” Jonathan said, worming an arm around her shoulder, and placing his chin on her shoulder. “Of course you are.”

Joyce raised a hand and grasped Jonathan’s free one, squeezing. She continued, her voice filled with an emotional passion only capable in mothers. “Goddamn this all. She’s going to be loved.”

* * *

Jonathan left Joyce with a promise of returning to the hospital with some food.

Most places are closed, that 10PM bedtime of dozing small towns that he had forgotten in the wake of the big city. 

He couldn’t remember when the grocery store closed, and found himself unconsciously turning down the road towards it.

He reached towards the heater, turning the dial all the way up, luke-warm air hitting his face at far too high a fan speed, almost drowning out the radio completely. He turned the radio up with the same freehand, snorted at the  _ thriller, thriller of the night, and no one’s gonna save you from the beast about to strike,  _ that came blaring out. 

He spun the dial, volume to zero, and cursed Michael Jackson with a vehemence he hadn’t since “Eye of the Tiger” was everywhere in ‘82.

The Ford LTD groaned as he turned into the supermarket. The way the headlights flickered would probably cause Jonathan to panic, if they hadn’t been doing so since he’d been gifted the car in ‘81 after his Mom bought the Pinto. 

The breath of November stirred up the dead leaves, like ghosts driven from an enchanter, little marks curling against the haze of the dark evening sky. 

Hawkins might be nothing - but, at this moment, to Jonathan, it felt like all the world.

As he placed the Ford into park, he noticed two things simultaneously - the store was definitely closed, and there was another car parked in the lot; a tan and white monstrosity that had an open back end. 

Nancy and Steve’s silhouettes are visible through the haze of the streetlight, bright and white and unblinking against the black, starless canvas. 

Jonathan exited the car and walked forward slowly, uncommonly aware of his own footsteps, the slight crunch as he steps on a dead life, the crack of a small stick breaking under his worn boots, heel to toe. 

As he approached, he could see Nancy’s arm around Steve’s neck, holding him close to her side, their hands intertwined in Steve’s lap. He was resting his head up against Nancy’s shoulder, eyes closed, but both of them look up upon hearing him.

Nancy’s face lit up noticeably, but Jonathan notes with a dull thump of his heart that Steve also visibly brightens, the soft curve of his smile real and intimate. 

“Howdy there,” Nancy greeted. Her face was pale under the streetlight. Her feet were swinging back and forth from the bed of the truck, forcibly reminding Jonathan that she once was a child, and he knew her then, too, even then untouchable. “Fancy meeting you here.”

He let out a dry chuckle, slightly awkward and too short, but it doesn’t wipe the smile off either of their faces.

“Are you both okay?” Jonathan had been slightly too preoccupied to make sure an hour ago. “I mean, especially you, Steve, I remember how Will had been—”

“That was after like, a week,” Steve interrupted, not unkindly. “It was only a day here, thanks to my brilliant wife’s sleuthing.” 

He leaned forward and kissed her neck, making her smile and look away, and Jonathan felt something clench inside him, the same piece in his chest that helped drive him to NYU in the first place. 

“And you, of course.” Jonathan looked up from where his gaze had inadvertently turned to the dark Earth. “I can’t thank you enough, Jonathan. For everything.”

Jonathan shrugged, not knowing how to reply, and buried his foot in the soil. 

“Sit down, Jonathan,” Nancy said. She tugged his jean coat, still grimy from the past days events, and he let himself be pulled to the bed of the truck. He took a seat, crossing his ankles.

It was still. 

There wasn’t a car in sight; the grocery store was closed down for the night with not a soul remaining; the darkness held nothing more sinister than a firefly; and the blackness was blank in a calm, contented way that he had missed while living in New York. 

“How are you?” 

Jonathan glanced over to Nancy’s concerned expression. Her small, calloused fingers were on his elbow, and he can see Steve’s total focus from just a foot away. 

“Me?”

“You lost a brother,” Steve reminded, gentle, as if Jonathan could forget. 

He swallowed, and, to his own worthless embarrassment, felt tears prick his eyes. He looked up to the stars and let the cold air take them from him before responding. His voice still wavered. 

“I lost a brother years ago. I’m not sure I ever got him back.” He looked at them, two of the only people in the world who could understand, and let out a breath. “At least - at least this is peace.”

Nancy reached to his lap and grabbed his hand, squeezing it. He squeezed back, but, to his surprise, she didn’t drop it. Jonathan snuck a look at Steve, who was looking nothing but empathetic.

“How’s your mom taking it?” Nancy asked.

“She’s been silently grieving for five years. She knew better than anyone when it was time to let go. Plus, she has Eleven to care for now. It’ll help, whether she’ll admit it or not.”

Steve reached around Nancy to grab his shoulder, squeezing it tightly, once. 

“What are you going to do now?”

Jonathan shrugged. 

“Are you going back to New York soon?” Steve asked. Jonathan could hear his fingers tapping on the truck’s side.

“No. I’m coming back here, at least for a while.” They both smiled genuinely at that, and Jonathan hastened to explain. “I can’t very well leave my mom alone. Not after that. She needs me.”

“What about your life in New York?” Nancy asked, still so gentle. 

Jonathan breathed in a deep lungful of clean, Indiana air. “I had a job there,” he said. “Not a life there.”

Nancy’s hand squeezed his, from where she was still holding it. Her hand was cold.

“Are you going to be building one of those here, then?”

“If I can figure out where to start.”

“I’m sure we can help you with that,” Steve said. His blatant sincerity had Jonathan pausing, unsure of how to answer. 

He just smiled back, which Steve answered with his own wide grin, too large for his face, and from the corner of his eye, he can see Nancy smile down at their hands.

The autumn breeze slowly drifted past them, chilling through even sweaters, and they unconsciously huddled closer, a band of three, connected and touching and warm, staring sightless out into the black quiet of night, into the stillness of downtown Hawkins, like placid lull the moment after a massive storm, like the Earth letting out a giant breath.

“It feels like it’s over,” Jonathan said, not thinking of the words until they’re already out of his mouth, but the moment it’s voiced, he knew it was true. “It never felt - done. After ‘83. But it feels - it feels complete.”

“Like the closing of a book.”

Jonathan nodded, but Steve snorted. “You would say a book, you nerd.” 

He poked Nancy in the ribs, and she retaliated with a elbow in his stomach, softly banging into Jonathan with the force of it. 

She laughed quietly and leaned back into Jonathan, purposeful this time, and it went quiet.

“It does, though,” Steve said, after a beat had passed. “Feels like it’s ended.”

Nancy leaned her head on Steve’s shoulder, and he reached an arm around her. Her thumb is gently stroking Jonathan’s wrist.

It felt pure. The three of them, enjoying each other’s company, grieving and celebrating and simply existing together - it felt clear, just right, in a way that was as inexplicable as it was real, and suddenly, Jonathan couldn’t stop a smile, ducking his head to hide it.

“Well,” he said. “Maybe not the end of all things.”

**Author's Note:**

> pokes head out of fandom


End file.
